Scripture warns against the dangers of debt and encourages responsible financial stewardship. The book of Psalms notes that those who lend to the Lord by helping the poor are blessed, while Proverbs cautions that the borrower becomes a servant to the lender. In the New Testament, Romans reminds believers to owe nothing to anyone except love, and Jesus teaches in Luke to lend without expecting return. Proverbs also advises against putting up collateral for someone else's loan, emphasizing the importance of prudent financial decisions.
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Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
Do not be one who gives pledges, who puts up security for debts. If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you?
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
Do not withhold good from the deserving when it is within your power to act. Do not tell your neighbor, “Come back tomorrow and I will provide”— when you already have the means.
If you lend money to one of My people among you who is poor, you must not act as a creditor to him; you are not to charge him interest. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as collateral, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? And if he cries out to Me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
The LORD will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.
Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”
A faithful man will abound with blessings, but one eager to be rich will not go unpunished.
If there is a poor man among your brothers within any of the gates in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, then you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother.
He who loves pleasure will become poor; the one who loves wine and oil will never be rich.
He does not engage in usury or take excess interest, but he withholds his hand from iniquity and executes true justice between men.
Walk in the manner of the ant, O slacker; observe its ways and become wise. Without a commander, without an overseer or ruler, it prepares its provisions in summer; it gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, O slacker? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and need like a bandit.